Sunday, 20 January 2013

Van Hool 'Tram Buses' for Birmingham

Birmingham travellers could be boarding ‘tram buses’ as plans to transform public transport in the city
took a major step forward.
The 'Birmingham Sprint' travel scheme will see 'tram buses' run along the A34 Walsall corridor to Five Ways in Edgbaston via Eastside.

The vehicles are due to start in 2015 as part of an £800
million ‘Vision for Movement’ strategy in the city.
The
new system, which is likely to enjoy dedicated lanes and priority
traffic signalling to speed up journeys, will first be developed along
the A34 Walsall corridor to Five Ways in Edgbaston via Eastside, the
Bullring, Paradise Circus and Broad Street with a view to it being
operational to coincide with the completion of New Street Station in
2015.
A delegation of representatives from regional transport body
Centro, the council, Broad Street Business Improvement District,
Colmore Business District and National Express visited Belgian
manufacturer Van Hool to see how the European tram buses are made.
They
also visited Paris to meet representatives from Syndicat des transports
d’Île-de-France, which controls the public transport network there, to see how trams operate.

Van Hool showed their 'Tram Bus' type vehicle at Kortrijk

A
Centro spokesman said: “The first day was a visit to the vehicle
manufacturers to see a demonstration of vehicle types available for the
forthcoming Sprint project.
“The
second day was a look at a route in France near to Paris where a
significant project had been undertaken and showed in detail the kind of
issues that a major project of this kind would have to overcome and how
it was best to implement.
“The
visit provided an invaluable amount of information that has subsequently
been used to agree with all parties a robust economic profile of routes
within the area that might benefit from the type of investment seen in
France.”

At
the launch of Vision for Movement three years ago, a London
Underground-style map was unveiled showing six new routes linking city
suburbs and the Black Country to central Birmingham.
Sprint would be served by a fleet of dozens of “rapid transport vehicles” which look like trams but operate without tracks.

2 comments:

As with First's FTR (currently bouncing along the main road between Leeds and Bradford), this is another attempt to make style beat substance. People fall for it in the short-term, but long-term it merely feeds their cynicism - and we have more than enough of that in the UK today!

The Focus Transport website is intended to appeal to those that have a broad interest in public transport.

We cover topical news items and display high quality photographs relating to the current transport scene and also show archive material from slides and prints that are relevant to the subjects under review.

We publish in-depth articles about transport issues and welcome contributions from anyone who has suitable material.